LONDON, Part I

Still playing catch-up here. Let's go back to early July, nearly a month ago, after my parents returned home and when I really began the UK leg of my summer.

My first couple of days on my own I oriented myself around Forest Gate, my cousins' neighbourhood where I am staying, and nearby Stratford, where the Olympic Park is located, and a fabulous giant new mall where I often sought refuge from the weird heat wave England experienced for much of July. The heat, of course, as I've mentioned, has unfortunately been a factor in my plans, as I am a delicate, pale flower and do not handle heat well. Or direct sunlight. Both reasons why I thought England would be a great place for me to spend the summer! Oh well. Good news is that the weather has gotten better over the last week or so, to the point where I'm actually able to happily spend all day outdoors exploring this great city. But back in early July, it was still quite gross. One early day, there was a reprieve from the heat, where it actually cooled down enough that I was able to wear jeans for the first time in a month, basically.

I took advantage of the cooler weather to do some serious wanderings, my first solo jaunt through the West End. I started off in Covent Garden to grab some lunch, then wandered to Piccadilly Circus and saw a bit of Regent street. I made my way to Buckingham Palace (I have plans to go tour the State Rooms and maybe the Royal Mews there perhaps in a couple of days from now), and then wandered through Green Park, Hyde Park and, finally, Kensington Gardens. I was in search of the giant Mr. Darcy statue that had briefly appeared in the middle of Hyde Park's Serpentine Lake, as part of a promotional gimmick for some new Drama TV channel here. I was there only a couple of days after the statue first appeared, but sadly it had already been taken down. I walked the circumference of the entire lake to no avail, although I did get to see most of the park a result.

Piccadilly Circus.

Grand old Regent Street.

I stumbled across the Burberry flagship store on Regent Street. I went in. I would have been in heaven could I actually afford to buy a single thing in the store. But one day. I was going to buy myself a Burberry trench coat at the end of last year, but decided I would rather go to Europe for four months this summer instead. I made the right choice, of course, and hopefully Burberry isn't going anywhere.

On my way to Buckingham Palace, I passed the grand Horse Guard Parade.

I first read that sign as: "Beware horses may kick or thank you!"

Union Jack.

And more Union Jacks, on the Mall.

Wait, do you see that there?

There it is! Big Ben!

Buckingham Palace!

Flag's up--the Queen's home!

Buckingham Palace zoom!

Selfie in front of Buckingham Palace!

Media tents, getting ready for the royal baby? (This was about a week and a half before the birth!)

Flags along the Mall, again.

St. James Palace buildings, I think.

St. James, from the front.

Guys, this carpenter is on royal appointment to the Queen!

See!

Green Park.

Memorial to Canadian soldiers, in Green Park next to Buckingham Palace. Nearby you could also find memorials for other Commonwealth nations, including Australia and New Zealand.

The memorial itself.

The top of the memorial, with water cascading down maple leaves.

The Wellington Arch, complete with its own version of the quadriga (as on the top of the Brandenburg Gate).

On another day, I climbed up the Wellington Arch, which contains a small gallery inside of it. Part of the Quadriga up close.

Door of the Wellington Arch.

Hyde Park.

Serpentine Lake, sans Mr. Darcy.

The garden that Prince Albert gave to Queen Victoria, because why not.

Note the girl painting the pavilion!

More Hyde Park.

Baby duckies!

The Princess Diana Memorial Fountain in Kensington Gardens.

That day was a marathon walking day. But mostly, as I've said, the weather was so hot during much of the past month that I could usually only manage doing one or two things a day, and most of those were indoor museumy things, SUCH AS:

The Natural History Museum, where I went to see a wonderful exhibit of Sebastiao Salgado's photographs from his travels around the world.

Natural History Museum.

This was my favourite photograph of them all. I love that penguin jumping off the ice so very much. He looks so gleeful. (Image taken from Google. No photographs were permitted in the exhibition, of course.)

And, the wonderful British Museum:

The BM!

Inner courtyard.

The Rosetta Stone, key to deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphics.

The Elgin Marbles.

And the V&A (Victoria and Albert Museum), which I would love to go back to if I have the time (although I doubt I will), because it's this huge, sprawling place and I think one could spend several days there, easily.

The V&A.

Also, it's super confusing to find your way through the V&A, because it's divided into two parts, and each stairway only leads to certain floors, and the elevators (sorry, "lifts") just refused to work for me, so I'd end up looking like an idiot and getting out at the same floor, and many sections were weirdly roped off. But anyway. All I wanted to do was make my way to the furniture section, because I like looking at historical furniture, and also jewellery, but I never made it to either of those sections in the museum, because the building's magnificent courtyard distracted me, and you can easily see why:

Also, St. Paul's, which was amazing. Seriously, wonderful. The scale of the whole building is quite impressive, and it's beautiful, of course. But also, the importance of that place to Londoners' morale during the Blitz, and its status as a symbol of Britain...it's all wonderfully grand and important. I climbed the 500 plus stairs to the very top of the cathedral's dome, too, and was rewarded with magnificent views of London.

St. Paul's! It's pretty much impossible to get a shot of the whole building at once.

Surreptitious shot of the dome. You're not supposed to take photos inside, but I am a Rebel. Also, did you know that the famous dome of St. Paul's is in fact three separate domes? There's an inner one, shown here, visible from inside, and the outer one, and in between there's a brick one for support. Apparently it was designed accordingly so that no matter where you were--inside or outside the cathedral--you would always be able to see the dome and it would always appear to be in proportion with the rest of the building.

About 400 odd steps up to the first viewing platform around the famous dome.

Another hundred odd steps up to the second, and highest, viewing gallery.

Peek-a-boo! Bye, St. Paul's.

That week was very much a grand church week, because a couple of days afterwards, I went to visit Westminster Abbey. On the whole, I actually preferred St. Paul's, but that might have something to do with the fact that it was more spacious and therefore felt less crowded with tourists. Westminster Abbey is, of course, incredibly beautiful and equally grand and impressive. And it scores some extra points for being the site of Will and Kate's 2011 nuptials!

Westminster Abbey.

And again. The other entrance.

The inner courtyard.

I think I will leave it here for now, because there's already about a million photos in this post alone and it's getting unwieldy. I still have quite a lot of catching up to do--at least two weeks' worth, including some wonderful side trips I've done so far, but I'm not sure when I'll have a chance to post those. Tomorrow I'm hoping to go visit Buckingham Palace (!) and then the next day I'm off to Wales to spend a week in the countryside with my cousins. Apparently there's Internet access there, so if it works, I'll try to work on my blog during the evenings. We'll see.

Until then, I'll leave you with this:

Cream tea in the Crypt of St. Paul's. Notice the priests having a coffee break at the table in the back!

Cream tea in Westminster Abbey!

CREAM TEA COUNT: 4